From the Archives: A Gold Box for Rouge & Patches, 1783

Isabella reporting:

An 18th c. French lady could take literally hours dressing for an important ball. Just like modern celebrities preparing for the red carpet, a Parisian court beauty required a team of experts to dress and powder her hair, apply her make-up and patches, fasten jewels around her throat and wrists, lace her into her stays, and pin and her into her gown.

But even this carefully crafted magnificence might need a touch-up or two in the course of the evening, and a lady had to be prepared. This little gold box, left, contained a looking glass, a tiny brush, rouge, patches - those black velvet faux beauty marks so well-loved in the 17th-18th centuries.

Just as fashionable artifice reached new heights in the 18th c., so, too, did the craftsmanship that produced this box. This is the work of a master goldsmith: precisely cut and meticulously soldered, with inset hinges and perfectly fitted panels as well as separate compartments for the rouge and patches. The surfaces of the box are beautifully decorated as well in contrasting yellow and white gold. All of this is done on a miniature scale: the box measures only 2-1/8" x 1-1/2" x 5/8".

It's easy to imagine a lady using such a piece for artful flirtation, gracefully opening the little box and fluffing the brush over her cheeks, and, perhaps, coyly using its gleaming reflection to check the interest of the gentleman sitting behind her....

Above left: Box for Rouge and Patches, French (Paris), 1783-84, Varicolored gold. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Kate Read Blacque. Photos copyright Susan Holloway Scott.
Lower right: Les Adieux, engraving, Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune, 1777.

Friday Video: The President's Tailor

Isabella reporting,

While Loretta and I were on our break, Labor Day may have slipped by, but we haven't forgotten it. A holiday in celebration of the American worker is too wonderful to overlook, and today's video is the perfect tribute. Martin Greenfield is a master tailor who has made suits for American presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. Immigrating to this country as an orphaned teenager in 1947, he's justifiably proud of his craftsmanship and all he has achieved, and he's clearly prouder still to be an American.

But Mr. Greenfield's story is filled with tragedy as well. Because he and his family were Jews, they were imprisoned by the Nazis in the concentration camps at Auschwitz. He was the only one of his family to survive, and as he says in this video, he continues to grieve for them over seventy years later. In this American election year, when racist rhetoric and hate-crimes against those who are different are on the rise, and the Alt-Right movement has brazenly appropriated the symbols and philosophies of Nazi Germany, we all need to be reminded of the hard lessons that came from the suffering of the past, and make sure those dark days never return.

If you received this post via email, you may be seeing an empty space or black box where the video should be. Please click here to watch the video.

An 18thc Dress Becomes a 19thc Costume for Charades

Isabella reporting,

For people like me who love 18thc clothing, the 19thc can be a very dark period. For an era that has a reputation for being grim and dour, the Victorians seized any excuse to dress up in fancy dress. Costume balls, masquerades, pageants, amateur charades and pantomimes after supper were all the rage, and they loved, loved, loved the gorgeous silks and velvets of the Georgians.

While some of the most elaborate fancy-dress outfits worn by the upper classes were created to order by designers like Charles Frederick Worth, the majority of Englishmen and women would simply ransack the attic for a good costume. If great-grandmother's dress or great-grandfather's coat wasn't considered worthy of remaking into something modern, it became fair game for dress-up.

Nor were the clothes treated with much respect. The idea of preserving the past through the material culture of clothing is a relatively new idea. Old clothes were simply old clothes, and it was more important - and fun - to let everyone amuse themselves with makeshift fancy dress, from adults to children. Some 18thc clothes, too, were donated to theatrical companies, where they suffered the additional indignities of being smeared with stage make-up and worn under hot lights. Still other clothes wound up in the wardrobes of artist's studios, ready to dress a model for a painting with an historical theme.

Modern costume curators all have horror stories of how once-glorious Georgian dresses and suits in their collections were battered and stained and remade until they became only faded, tattered shades of their former selves: a scrap of embroidered silk here, or a jewel-studded button there. But until I saw this painting last month while visiting the RISDMuseum, I'd never witnessed the very act of Victorian costume-crime.

A Game of Charades, above (click on the image to enlarge), was painted by the popular historical and genre artist Edward Matthew Ward. A lively family group is amusing itself with charades in the parlor, and the improvised costumes include a sailor, some sort of rough frontiersman, and a gypsy. Of course there's a guy in drag, too, with a cap and kerchief on his head, because there always is.

I'm not quite sure about the clothes of the two young women dancing together, and the two women musicians. The museum dates the painting at c1840, which would make their dresses with the enormous sleeves about ten or fifteen years out of date. Are those sleeves far enough from current fashion that the dresses would have already become ripe for ridicule and costume - much the way today that people invited to parties with a 1980s theme will wear huge shoulder pads? The yellow dress seems to be worn with some ankle-length bloomers plus "exotic" slippers, which makes me think it's become a costume. Or are the young women not wearing costumes at all, but are simply a bit behind the current trends?

But it's the woman in the painting's foreground (and right) who really breaks my heart. She's wearing a gorgeous gown, petticoat, and apron from around 1775, complete with a ruffled cap that she likely found in the same trunk. The pale blue silk in that apron shimmers richly, and the petticoat that peeks out from beneath the gown looks like it might have gold threads. The rose silk of the gown is either a damask weave, or perhaps embroidered with flowers. This is still-beautiful clothing that must have been the height of fashion when new, and costly, too, yet by 1840 it's been relegated to charades, or perhaps to the artist's costume collection. What became of it all since then, I wonder?

Above: A Game of Charades, by Edward Matthew Ward, c1840, RISDMuseum.

Fashions for September 1882

September 1882 Fashions

Loretta reports:

C. Willett Cunnington, writing in 1937, had this to say about 1880s fashions, in English Women�s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century.

The fashions of the �80�s were more remote than those of any other decade from modern standards of taste. But if, on that account, we are pleased to call them ugly we only beg the question�not very important�which is the better taste. Their interest to us lies in their significance for they display an unusual amount of symbolism. Economic depression forcing many women to seek other careers than marriage, coupled with increasing outdoor activities, produced fashions in which the ordinary devices of sex-attraction were absent. The tailor-made costume, for example, seemed to the older school repellently masculine. It was the first move towards a style signifying (unconsciously) that the wearer was engaged in some other pursuit than the capture of man. Even the evening dress, majestically ornate, avoided the cruder methods of allurement; the high neck for dinner wear, the minimum display of physical charms until eh close of the decade, and the preference for heavy materials, all were in keeping with the spirit of the period. The principle was strict, that beauty should make no passionate appeal. The epoch was, above all others, anti-anatomical.�

September 1882 descr

September 1882 descr

The author quotes a �contemporary�s� remark: �Women whose minds are occupied with other things tend toward simplicity in costume while those who are empty-handed and empty-headed oftenest appear in fantastic and gaudy garments.�

Each era brings its own perspective on dress, of its own as well as earlier times. And I for one am not at all sure that �fantastic and gaudy garments� necessarily indicate stupidity or shallowness. For some people, extravagance in dress can be an expression of joie de vivre or an artistic statement, among other things.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

From the Archives: The Tale of a Teenaged Sailor (and Embroiderer), 1850

Isabella reporting:

Not all 19thc embroidery was done by ladies in parlors. This sailor's uniform and sea bag were featured in one of my favorite exhibitions at
Winterthur, now nearly five years ago.  With Cunning Needle: Four Centuries of Embroidery was filled with stunning needlework that ranged from schoolgirl samplers to masterpieces by professional embroiderers. While some of the pieces might have represent more skill or sophistication than the two pieces shown here, none had a better story behind them. (Click on the photos to enlarge them to see the details.)

Standardized uniforms for enlisted sailors in the United State Navy were still a relatively new notion in the 1840s-50s, when this uniform was created. While sailors were required to wear the Navy-issued uniforms while on board ship, there was more leeway in what they could wear on shore. The shore-going uniform could be proudly embellished and embroidered to suit a sailor's tastes, as well as to reflect his skill with a needle. (Here's part of another elaborately embroidered shore-going uniform, a dark wool blouse from c. 1862.)

This rare summer uniform and sea bar were owned, worn, and likely embroidered by Warren Opie, born in 1835. Growing up in a large family of comfortable means in Burlington, NJ, Warren's childhood effectively ended with his cordwainer (shoemaker) father's early death in 1848. Warren's mother struggled to support the family, and several of Warren's sisters were sent to live with other relatives. It's likely that Warren, too, felt the family's financial pressures, and in 1850, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy for a three-year tour of duty with the rating of a second-class boy. He was fifteen.

Warren served on the steam frigate Susquehanna, the flagship of the four-ship squadron commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry on his historic trip to Japan between 1850-1854. Warren would have had considerable time to make this sea bag and uniform on the long voyage between Norfolk, VA and Japan; it's possible that he learned to sew from his father, or perhaps from some of the other men in the crew. While the uniform shows the typical patriotic motifs � stars, eagles, anchors, and flags � popular among sailors, his bag features his parents, his two closest sisters, and landmarks from his hometown in New Jersey. Warren was visiting exotic countries on the far side of the world, but it's clear his heart still remained at home.

In Japan, Commodore Perry presented a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the ruler of Japan in an elaborate ceremony involving nearly all the American sailors in his squadron and thousands of Japanese officials, soldiers, and attendants. Records show that one of the American ship's boys carried the president's framed letter in the procession. It's tempting to imagine Warren, dressed in this splendidly embroidered summer-uniform, as the boy performing this important task.

Unfortunately, there's no documentation to tell what became of Warren after his three-year-tour was done; he last appears in navy records as having been promoted to "landsman," a full member of the crew. No one knows if he died at sea, or jumped ship in some foreign port, or returned to New Jersey to live a long and contented life, nor is there any record of how his uniform landed in the hands of the dealer who sold it to Mr. Du Pont for his collection. It's all another history-mystery � but what a wonderful legacy Warren Opie left in his embroidery!

Above: Summer uniform of an enlisted sailor, worn by Warren Opie, 1850-54, linen, silk, wool.
Sea Bag, owned by Warren Opie, 1850-54, linen, silk, wool, cotton.
From collection of Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library

The Importance of Mending, c1775

Isabella reporting,

We've often shared beautiful clothing here on the blog, lavish silk gowns enhanced with yards of lace and ribbons. For most women living in the 18thc, however, gowns like those were as far beyond their wardrobes as haute couture Chanel is for the majority of us today.

But our 18thc sisters valued the garments that they did own much more than we do. The cost of their clothing lay in the fabric, not the labor. Last year's clothes weren't discarded when they no longer fit, fell from fashion, or showed wear. Instead they were unpicked and taken apart and remade, mended and reworked. While the more expensive dresses would be remade by professional seamstresses and mantua-makers (see examples here and here), most mending was done at home.

Girls were taught useful darning and mending stitches as well as fancy embroidery, and though it was often called "plain sewing," the neatness of the stitches and repairs represented a skill that was anything but plain. Nor was mending an entirely feminine endeavor. Men whose work took them far from home (and thus far from obliging female family members) like sailors and frontiersmen also became adept at mending their clothing.

I was reminded of the importance of mending as I recently watched Sarah Woodyard, a journeywoman mantua-maker in the Margaret Hunter shop, Colonial Williamsburg, repairing a gown. Sarah made the gown in 2012 for apprentice blacksmith Aislinn Lewis. (See the dress when it was new in this blog post.) The fabric is a serviceable linen with indigo-blue stripes, and it's the fabric that marks this as a working-class garment. With its open-front, fitted bodice and full skirts thanks to neat rows of tiny pleats, the same style of the dress could have been made in silk for a wealthy lady.

Aislinn's work at the anvil in the blacksmith's shop has worn sizable holes in the bodice and in the underside of the sleeve where the two areas rub together. Since the rest of the dress was still in good shape, Sarah offered to mend the holes. The goal of an 18thc patch or darn was to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Statement-making patches of contrasting fabrics wouldn't even have been considered. (The checked fabric that shows in the hole of the sleeve is the sleeve's lining, not a patch.)

In the photograph, above, Sarah is patching the hole in the bodice with a scrap of the original fabric, taking care to line up the stripes; the only difference will be how the new fabric hasn't faded. She'll turn in the raw edges and overcast them, and stitch everything neatly into place. The finished effect won't be invisible, but it will give fresh life to a favorite garment - not such a bad idea in our era of fast fashion and disposable clothes.

Photograph �2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

Embroidery for a Man's Suit that Was Never Made Up, c1780

Isabella reported,

Last month I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Antonio Ratti Textile Center and Reference Library to study examples of 18thc embroidery (see my first post here), including this fascinating example. As always, please click on the images to enlarge them.

This piece is really several pieces, or panels, featuring the embroidered elements for a man's suit that was never completed. Elaborate embroidery was the height of male fashion in the 18thc, and skilled embroiderers executed designs in silk, sequins, and beading.

The embroidery was worked flat, with the fabric stretched taut on wooden frames. The embroidery pattern and the garment's outline were transferred to the fabric via pouncing - a light chalky powder pressed through tiny holes in the paper pattern - and then the lines were reinforced with ink on the fabric. These lines were meant to be covered by the embroidery, although some do still peek through if you look carefully.  The illustration from Diderot's Encyclop�die, upper right, shows two embroiderers at work on a coat.

These panels are embroidered in silk thread, with accents of netting, on a purple silk cloth. The larger panel, left, includes not only the embroidery for accenting the front of the coat, but also the pocket flaps, upper left, and buttons, bottom left. The second panel, lower right, has the collar and cuffs as well as the knee tabs for the matching breeches. (To better understand how all these puzzle-pieces were meant to be assembled, see this similar suit, also in the Met's collection.) The pieces that are basted together in the second panel may indicate that different embroiderers were working on the same project.

In most cases, the completed embroidered panels would have next gone to a tailor to be made up into a suit. The embroidery could have been ordered to the tastes of a specific customer, or done on speculation. Either way, it would have been the tailor's responsibility to assemble the embroidery to fit his customer's body.

These panels were never made into finished garments, and the reasons why are now forgotten. They're rare survivors of the historic fashion trades, and wonderful to study as they are. But being a fiction writer, however, I kept wondering why the suit was never made. Were the colors of the silk flowers not to a customer's tastes? Was the embroidery more expensive than he expected, and never claimed? Or was the embroidery somehow "so last year," and out of fashion before it could be finished?

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Associate Curator, European Sculpture & Decorate Arts, and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, and the staff of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center for their assistance, knowledge, and patience - as you can tell, I had a wonderful Nerdy-History-Girl time!

Above: Embroidered panels for a man's suit, French, c1780, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographs �2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Fashions for August 1872

Walking dresses August 1872

Loretta reports:

According to Cunnington's English Women's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, �The fashions of this year were marked by a change in the colour taste and a development of the polonaise.� While some �still clung to the use of two approximate shades of one colour ... others boldly employed contrasts, but the general preference was for soft and �autumn tints.��

The polonaise �consisted of a bodice and tunic in one, the tunic being looped up at the sides, short in front and much looped up behind into a puff. It was, of course, only a revival of an eighteenth century garment but its acceptance may be fairly attributed to English rather than to French taste. In a special form, made with materials printed in chintz patterns, it was known as the �Dolly Varden.�� It seems we are not to use the two terms interchangeably, however, as, according to Cunnington�s sources, the Dolly Varden was �not patronized by the �best people.��  In other words, it was popular and affordable.

1872 dress description

1872 dress description cont'd

Cunnington includes more detailed explanations of the style(s). Since I do not make historical clothing and barely understand even modern dressmaking terminology, these might as well have been written in Romanian or Chinese. What�s clear enough is the change in shape from the 1860s fashions I showed last month, from the wide-all-around tent-like skirt to the flat front, and the wonderfully inventive emphasis on the booty.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Trying to Keep Cool the 18thc Way in Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

This past weekend I made a quick visit to Colonial Williamsburg, where it was hot, hot, hot, and tropically humid, too - the steamiest of Tidewater Virginia weather. As I walked (no, I'll be honest: I was dragging myself) around the historic area, I was impressed by how the women dressed in the style of c1775 seemed to look much more comfortable with the heat than I was, dressed c2016.

The secret to keeping bearably cool in the heat like our 18thc counterparts did? Apparently it's layers of linen and cotton that breathe and absorb perspiration away from the skin, plus straw hats against the sun.

Not far from the cabinet-maker's shop, Katy, upper left, was making a length of cord (probably destined for use as a drawstring) with the help of a lyre-shaped tool called a lucet. Her linen bedgown is comfortably loose and pinned closed, and given shape with the apron tied around her waist.

Sitting before the George Wythe House, Christian, right, was writing in her journal, pen in hand and inkstand on the bench beside her. In addition to her linen jacket, shift, and petticoat, she was wisely keeping from the sun with her wide-brimmed hat plus fingerless linen mitts, all designed to preserve a proper lady-like paleness.

In the shade of the courthouse porch, Mairin, lower left, was embroidering, her scissors hanging ready on a ribbon from her waist. She wore a mix of bright colors and prints that were cheerful and summery to modern eyes: a printed cotton short gown, a printed cotton neckerchief, a checked apron, and a bright yellow linen petticoat. In the shade, she didn't wear a straw hat, but she did make sure to keep her head covered with a neat linen cap. What 18thc woman wouldn't?

But all of these women were sitting still while they worked. The young women (I'm sorry I wasn't able to ask their names), below right, were working in the treading pit in the brickyard. With their feet bare and their petticoats tucked into their aprons, they took turns mixing water with clay to create the raw material for the brickmaker to mold into bricks. Visitors were invited to join them, shedding their shoes and sandals to take a turn in the treading pit and shrieking at the unfamiliar sensation of wet clay between the toes.

Beneath a tent-like shelter overhead against the sun - I suspect more to keep the clay from drying out than to protect the workers - the clay and water must have been pleasantly cool underfoot on this hot day. But passing visitors notwithstanding, this wasn't at all the romanticized, genteel way we often imagine the past. This was hard, tedious work, unskilled labor at its most basic, and I couldn't help but think of the 18thc women, men, and children who must have toiled in similar treading pits from dawn until dusk, from early spring until the frosts of fall - and likely for the most minimum of wages, too.

All photographs �2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

A Close Encounter with Silk Embroidery for an 18thc Gentleman's Suit

Isabella reporting,

One of my favorite textile/costume exhibitions was last summer's Elaborate Embroidery: Fabrics for Menswear before 1815 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (you can read my post about it here.)

But as wonderful as the exhibition was, I longed to see the richly embroidered samples more closely than the display cases permitted. Last week, I finally returned to the Met for a research appointment at the Antonio Ratti Textile Center and Reference Library - the keepers of all those embroidery samples and much, much more besides.

The sample here (click on the images to enlarge) was one of the ones that I requested to view. It's not large: 12-1/2" x 7-3/4". The black fabric is faintly dotted silk velvet, and the embroidery threads are silk and metallic. There are also dozens of tiny sequins as well as paste jewels worked into the design. It might have been a sample of an embroidery pattern that was shown to gentlemen considering new suits, or it could also have been a experiment with a new pattern. The sample eventually became part of the textile design archives of The United Piece Dye Works, who gave the collection to the museum in 1936.

This sample was stitched in France around 1800-1815, long past the time when Louis XVI's court and their legendary excess had been displaced by the Revolution. But Napoleon Bonaparte liked those same sartorial trappings as much as his royal predecessors had, and gentlemen appearing at the imperial court were expected to appear in suits of luxurious fabrics embellished with embroidery like this. Of course, this kind of elaborate formal dress had never stopped being worn at the English court and others like it across Europe, but these suits were to be the last gasp of the glittering male peacock. Within a generation, formal wear for gentleman became dark and subdued, and has remained so to the present day.

Worked in shades of silver with gold accents on that inky velvet, a suit enhanced with the design in this sample would have sparkled and gleamed in an elegant, refined show of wealth and taste. Equipped with a magnifying glass, I was able to see the exquisite delicacy of the stitches, and the extremely fine silk and metallic threads used to create them, threads that would likely be impossible to find today.

I was especially interested in the tiny sequins, held in place by even smaller beads. The sequins that were stitched directly onto the velvet had tarnished over time, probably from a dye in the velvet, giving them an unintentional ombre effect. The small paste (glass) "jewels" near the edge were secured in in metal collars, which in turn were hidden by a loop of wrapped metallic thread. These details are visible where some of the loops has slipped away from the jewel.

I also loved being able to see the back side of the embroidery. Without the pile of the velvet and the glitter of the sequins and jewels, the design becomes more linear with the transition stitches criss-crossing over the flowers and leaves. In a way, it's equally beautiful, like the finest of silk spiderwebs.

Most of all, seeing this sample in such detail left me in awe of those now-forgotten designers, embroiderers, thread-spinners, sequin-and paste-jewel makers, velvet-weavers, and needle-makers who would have each contributed to its creation, and the skill, artistry, and accomplishment that this small bit of two-hundred-year-old fabric represents.

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Associate Curator, European Sculpture & Decorate Arts, and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, and the staff of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center for their assistance, knowledge, and patience - as you can tell, I had a wonderful Nerdy-History-Girl time!

Above: Embroidery sample for a man's suit, French, 1800-1815, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photographs �2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Proper Dress for Gentlemen in 1838

Men's Fashion Paris 1838

Loretta reports:

I tried to cut this excerpt down to my preferred short post size. Unfortunately, unlike so much 19th century prose, this is fairly concise, as well as being enlightening on several points.

However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of dress which will make you passable ...
If you have weak eyes, you should wear spectacles. If the defect be great, your glasses should be coloured. In such cases emulate the sky rather than the sea: green spectacles are an abomination�blue ones are respectable, and even distingu�.
Almost every defect of face may be concealed by a judicious use and arrangement of hair. Take care, however, that your hair be not of one colour and your whiskers of another. If you wear a wig, let it be large enough to cover the whole of your red or white hair.
The style of dress for the street is of little consequence, so that it be in good taste. Very light-coloured coats are to be avoided, as well as any thing in strong contrast with the other parts of your dress. The effect of a frock coat is to conceal the height. If, therefore, you are beneath the ordinary stature, or much above it, you should affect frock coats on all occasions that etiquette permits.
In the dining-room, and the drawing-room, dress coats must be adopted, and of late boots are permitted; but shoes and silk stockings are in better taste.
Abroad, in public assemblies, in the church or the theatre, as well as in walking the street, you should always wear gloves. The greatest care should be taken that they fit well, and that they are scrupulously unsullied.
Before going to a ball or party it is not sufficient that you consult your mirror twenty times. You must be personally inspected by your servant or a friend. From want of this precaution, I once saw a gentleman enter a ball-room, attired with scrupulous elegance, but with one of his suspenders curling in graceful festoons about his feet. His glass could not show what was behind.
When we speak of excellence in dress we do not mean richness of clothing, nor manifested elaboration. Profusion of ornaments, rings, chains, &c. &c. are in bad taste. Faultless propriety, perfect harmony, and a refined simplicity,�these are the charms which always fascinate.
It is as great a sin to be finical in dress as to be negligent. A gentleman will always be well and tastefully dressed�choosing a sort of middle course between the extremes: avoiding foppery on the one hand, and carelessness on the other.
Upon this subject the ladies are the only infallible oracles. Apart from the perfection to which they must of necessity arrive, from devoting their entire existence to such considerations, they seem to be endued with an inexpressible tact, a sort of sixth sense, which reveals intuitively the proper distinctions. That your dress is approved by a man is nothing;�you cannot enjoy the high satisfaction of being perfectly comme il faut, until your performance has received the seal of a woman's approbation.

Paris fashion June 1838

�Etiquette for Gentlemen, with hints on the art of conversation, 1838

Images from Journal des Dames & des Modes, Costumes Parisiens, 1838. (Not a lot of men's 1830s fashion in any English publication I could find online.)

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: The True Truth About Corsets

Corsets

Loretta reports:

Isabella/Susan and I have devoted quite a bit of blog space to dealing with corset myths. Here, for instance. (For more, please search �corsets� on this blog.) However, we are only two nerdy history people against a tsunami of myths.

In an essay in a May issue of the New Yorker, the writer referred to women removing ribs to make their waists smaller as an example of how women torture themselves for fashion. We addressed this rib-removal urban legend in our myth-busting talk last spring at the New England Romance Writers Conference, and will no doubt address it again. The short version: No one has yet found a shred of actual medical evidence to support this; the evidence against, on the other hand, is substantial.

Meanwhile, here�s some footage to help bust the myth about Victorian ladies languishing on their sofas (when they weren�t too busy fainting, that is).

And you might want to check out her blog post here.

Image: Henri de Montaut, Etudes sur les femmes 1882-1890, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1951.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Fashions for July 1866

July 1866 Fashions

Loretta reports:

Last time I complained about the dearth of 1840s and 1850s ladies magazines, especially for England. While readers have generously pointed me to a treasure trove of fashion plates, we�re still not turning up whole magazines for these decades online.

The 1860s and 1870s are another matter entirely. For these decades Google Books offers numerous editions of The World of Fashion as well as the London and Paris Ladies� Magazine of Fashion (which may be the same magazine under a different name, as happened often enough) and others, complete with color fashion plates.

July 1866 Fashions

What I�m noticing is a difference in shape of the skirt. According to Cunnington�s English Women�s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, crinolines were going out of fashion, but they weren�t going out instantly. So the skirts are cut a bit differently from before, and look more triangular than bell-shaped.

Of the five sets of fashion plates for July, I settled on the first two. To see more, simply click on the links to the first two, and turn pages. You'll find a pair of beautiful ball dresses on some  strangely drawn women, especially one, whose head seems to be attached to the wrong body.

Plate 1 & 2 description

Plate 2 description cont'd

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

See-Through Summer Dresses for 1782?

Isabella reporting,

Satirical prints were in their glory in London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and for us researching Nerdy History folks, prints can be a wonderful source of information about society and fashion at the time. We just have to keep in mind that they're satire, not fashion plates.

This print is a perfect example. Glance at it quickly, and it looks like countless other prints showing the latest fashions, with three ladies showing both front and back views plus elegant hats and hair. The title of the print, Summer Dresses, makes it sound as if it's exactly that, too.

But if you look a little more closely (click on the image to enlarge it), you'll see that the women are combating warm weather by wearing less - a great deal less. They've left off their stays (corsets) and most of their other undergarments. The fabric of their gowns and aprons is so sheer that their bodies are plainly revealed (which makes those elaborate hats, stockings, and shoes a little strange by comparison.)

But it's a joke. Really. No London ladies were dressing like this. The light-hearted rhyming caption makes it clear:

   My Dear fair Friends
   For two great Ends
   This Summer Dress is recommended.
   Your Health's secured
   Sweet-Hearts insured
   The happy Objects here intended.

In other words, by parading about like this, ladies will not only stay cool and comfortable, but attract sweethearts galore.

But as is often the case with satirical prints, there's a grain of truth, however small, at work here. Over in France, Queen Marie-Antoinette was causing a sensation by wearing a new kind of dress dubbed the chemise a la reine, right.  This was a simple, unstructured dress made of white, light-weight cotton muslin that was a complete turnaround from the stiff silks and brocades, worn over rigid stays, that had dominated women's fashion for most of the century.

Although the chemise a la reine still looks like a lot of dress to modern eyes, in the early 1780s it was considered scandalously insubstantial. To the English satirical artists - the new styles were ridiculous, revealing, and above all FRENCH. See-through dresses were an easy target, and one sure to sell to the stalwart English print-buyers who must have delighted in the scantily clad women of Summer Dresses.

But such prints didn't stop Englishwomen from embracing the new muslin dresses for themselves. By 1785, fashionable aristocrats like Lady Elizabeth Foster, lower left, were posing for portraits wearing the English version of the chemise a la reine. Change was definitely in the air....

Thanks to Neal Hurst for recently posting Summer Dresses on his Facebook page.

Upper left: Summer Dresses, by an anonymous artist, London, 1782, British Museum.
Right: Portrait of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, by Elisabeth Vig�e-Lebrun, 1783. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Bottom left: Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Foster, by Angelica Kauffman, 1785, Ickworth House, National Trust.

What the Cherokee Woman Wore in Williamsburg, 1775

Isabella reporting,

I've often written here on the blog about the 18thc clothing of the British women of colonial Virginia as worn today by the interpreters of Colonial Williamsburg. I've mentioned how they took the fabric, ribbons, and accessories imported from Europe and created their own fashion statements and style. But as I learned this past weekend, I've been guilty of forgetting a large group of equally fashion-conscious women in the 18thc: the Native American women of the Cherokee nation.

Native Americans were very much a presence in the colonial capital, and Colonial Williamsburg now incorporates Native American interpreters and programs into the greater "story" of the city. There was a large Native presence in 18thc Williamsburg. Members of the Pamunkey, Nottoway, and many others were involved in trading, and it was was common to see young men from various Nations in town to attend the Brafferton Indian School at the College of William & Mary.

This past weekend Colonial Williamsburg featured a special event called "Return of the Cherokee", highlighting the Cherokee delegations that traveled to 18thc Williamsburg - about 500 miles from their homes in the more southern colonies - to negotiate treaties, trades, and alliances. The delegates might arrive by themselves or with their families, and they often camped within the city. One of these encampments was recreated this weekend, and became a center for modern visitors to learn more about Native American life in the British colonial era.

And, of course, I learned about clothes. According to Felicity Wite, above left, a member of the Lakota Nation and an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, trading with first the Spanish and later the Dutch, French, and British brought the world's goods to the eastern woodlands. Native men traded furs and skins, fish, pottery goods, and wooden wares for European cloth, clothing, ribbons, handkerchiefs, and beads (a sample is shown right) that were fashioned into new styles to suit their own tastes and culture. Trade bells, thimbles, wire, buckles, and even exotic peacock feathers were put to new purposes as ornaments and embellishments.

For example, Felicity is wearing a woven check shirt that would have been intended for an Englishman, but among the Cherokees was equally popular with both women and men. Beneath it she is wearing a skirt made from English Stroud cloth, a woven woolen that was popular as a trade cloth. Silk ribbons are stitched onto the Stroud cloth to make a decorative stripe, with the ends notched and left hanging as a kind of decorative fringe. The skirt ties at the waist with a leather thong or belt. On her feet are moccasins made of smoked, brain-tanned deerskin with wool-lined cuffs, embroidered with white glass trade beads.

Another garment worn by both men and women (and soon adopted by Europeans on the frontier) was the match-coat. Originally made of fur or skin, the match-coat evolved into a large rectangle of traded Stroud cloth that could be wrapped and tucked around the body to suit the wearer's needs and tastes. Felicity showed me one match-coat, middle left, that was richly embellished with ribbons with gold thread and a pattern of white beads. Another, lower right, was not only trimmed with ribbons and woven tape, but also made use of the Stroud cloth's undyed selvage, or edge; while Europeans hid the selvages inside seams, the Cherokees incorporated the white border into their designs.

Felicity also explained that the women of each tribe had their own distinctive hairstyles. Hers was combed back into a sleek twisted club, lower left, and tied with a length of red cloth. Her "wheels" earring featured an ornament of interlocking circles, a popular motif, while in her other ear she wore a dangling triangle. Jewelry could have been made from silver, or from an old brass pot; it was the shine that mattered more than the intrinsic European value of the metal. Extra color came from the blue silk ribbon tied into the hoop.

Three blocks away from Felicity and the other women of the encampment was the mantua-maker's shop, filled with the stays (corsets), hoops, heeled shoes, caps, and sweeping petticoats worn everyday by European women (like this.) There couldn't be two more different ways of dressing, and yet both represent fashions for Virginia in 1775.

Many thanks to Felicity Wite for her help with this post.

All photographs �2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Fashions for June 1855

June 1855 fashions

Loretta reports:

Last month we looked at some 1840s fashions.

This month we move into mid-19th century, where the skirts seem to be belling out more widely. Since Victorian fashion is foreign territory to me, I'm at a loss for intelligent observations, let alone clever ones about these steel engravings from Godey's' Lady's Book for 1855. I do love the flowers and lace framing the ladies' faces, under hat brims.

Given my ignorance, it  would be fun  to at least be able to do some compare and contrast with British fashion magazines from the era. Unfortunately, as is the case with the 1840s, it�s not easy to find fashion plates online, or when one does, they lack descriptions.*

Re today's descriptions: Guipure, for those of us who are ignorant of dressmaking terms, is a lace. Blonde, as my readers will be aware, is also a lace, the handmade version being quite expensive and thus an excellent way to display wealth.

1855 fashion description

*Warning: Rant follows in brackets

[While I�m grateful that somebody saved colored fashion plates, and they ended up in museums and libraries, it would have been much better had the entire magazine been preserved, to provide valuable insights into the time period. If saving the whole magazines was too much, people might at least have saved the descriptions, drat them!�end of rant]

Those of you interested in U.S. Victorian history and fashion may wish to subscribe to Accessible Archives, which has the complete Godey's collection online.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Dressed for 1775: The Tailor's Intern, Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

Whenever I'm visiting Colonial Williamsburg in the summer months, I always try to share photographs of the summer interns from the Margaret Hunter shop. Not only does the summer internship program provide valuable hands-on experience for college students who are studying historic clothing, construction, and fashion, but it also fills the shop with younger workers - workers whose ages more closely coincide with their counterparts in the 18thc.

It's easy to forget how young the Georgian labor force could be. Extended schooling was a luxury for the upper classes, child labor laws did not exist, and the entire concept of the teenager is a twentieth century invention. Most young people worked, often at an age when we'd still consider them children. Chimney sweeps, cabin boys, scullery maids, and workers in the mines, mills, and factories toiled long hours in hazardous condition for little pay. By comparison, an apprenticeship with a mantua-maker (dressmaker) or tailor offered the opportunity to learn a skilled trade, and the possibility of relative security and success.

Ike Cech, above, is one of the tailor's 2016 summer interns (I'll share the mantua-maker's interns soon.) A student at the University of Wisconsin Madison, Ike is studying textile and fashion design with a focus on historic design. This is Ike's second summer at Colonial Williamsburg; last year he was part of the team sewing the reproduction of General Washington's marquee, or tent (see more about the tent here.)

It was hot and humid today in Williamsburg, and Ike shows how an 18thc Virginian would have dressed for the summer weather while keeping an eye on London fashion. He's wearing loose, lightweight striped trousers, a checked linen shirt, and a black silk neckerchief. His striped jacket is a light wool and worn open (see the same jacket here worn buttoned for a very different look.) The final jaunty touch: a white felted wool hat, the summer version of the ubiquitous black hat worn by most 18thc Englishmen.      

Photograph �2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.          

Update: More About Those 18thc Leather Stays

Isabella reporting,

Last fall I shared a post about the replica leather stays that were being made at Colonial Williamsburg. Following historical examples, the stays were made by leather-workers Jay Howlett and intern Emma Cross for two of CW's apprentices: blacksmith Aislinn Lewis and tinsmith Jenny Lynn. When I wrote more about Jenny's 18thc clothing on Monday, reader Adam Cyphers asked if there was an update on how the leather stays were working "in the field."

The answer is a little mixed. In the pictures above, Aislinn is wearing her stays. As a woman working in a physical trade, she might well have worn the stays like this as an outer garment, and without a bodice or gown over it. Yes, stays were undergarments in the 18thc, but since they were always worn over a linen shift and not against the skin, it wasn't scandalous to wear them like this; it was considered practical.

Jenny's stays weren't as successful, with the original measurements just enough off to make them uncomfortable to wear for a full day's work. Because the stays are cut from single pieces of leather and scored instead of seamed, there isn't a way to adjust or modify them, and the stays are now being used for display in the Margaret Hunter Millinery shop, left. As you can see, however, Jenny did wear the stays long enough for them to begin to assume her shape.

While Jenny waits for another pair, she's wearing a different kind of stays that were popular with working-class women. Hers are stiffened not with whalebone (baleen) strips - used in the more expensive stays of the 18thc - but with thin oak splints that are also used in basketmaking. These stays are Jenny's favorites for everyday, and for now, they're more comfortable, too.

Top: Photographs �2015 Colonial Williamsburg's blog, Making History.
Below: Photograph �2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

Friday Video: The Countess di Castiglione, Queen of the Selfies

Scherzo di Follia (1863-66)

Loretta reports:

A couple of days ago, my husband sent me a link to some photographs of an Italian countess I�d never heard of. She turned out to be well worth hearing about.

Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, loved having her picture taken�under her command. As a result, we have a photographic treasure trove of mid-Victorian fashion and costume worn by a woman who upends our ideas of what �Victorian� mean.
But then, she was Italian.

I'm not going to tell her story here, because you can read all about her at Wikipedia and especially in this article at Mashable, which includes some splendid photos made under her direction (thus the "selfie" of this post title).

Instead I offer a video. I turned down the music, because it seemed a little overwrought for the subject. You may feel otherwise.

Image: Scherzo di Follia (1863-66)

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Fashions for May 1842

1842 Fashions

Loretta reports:

Let me just say at the outset that finding good images for the 1840s is a bear. While I�ve located a number of magazines online, color plates are not abundant, and the scan quality of many is less than ideal. And I do wish the women didn�t wear such simpering expressions.

The poor quality may be the fault of the paper used in the magazines. There was a shift from rag paper to paper paper at some point in the Victorian era, and rag doesn�t deteriorate as easily as paper. As to the simpering expressions, I can come up with a couple of explanations: (1) the artists weren�t good with faces or (2) this is the way the ideal woman was supposed to look: sweet and not too intelligent.

In any case, I think this plate will explain why I refer to the early-to-mid Victorian look as droopy. Remember those wild and crazy hairdos of the 1820s and 1830s? Gone.

Hair is now  slicked down on top, with the curls and braids and other artistic inventions relegated to the back of the neck. But that�s a sexy place, especially when the lady is wearing evening dress, with shoulders bared and bosom exposed in a way that seems not at all prudishly Victorian.

1842 Fashion Description

In any case, I think these dresses are very pretty. Notice that while the skirts are full, they haven�t yet yet attained the room-filling, knocking-over-tables-and-small-children width of the 1860s.

Images from The Magazine of the Beau Monde for May 1842

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.